Art doesn't come in measured quantities: it's got to be too much or it's not enough.

Protagonists are always loners, almost by definition.

Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

It seems likely that many of the young who don't wait for others to call them artists, but simply announce that they are, don't have the patience to make art.

He [Bernardo Bertolucci] has the kind of talent that breaks one's heart: where can it go, what will happen to it? In this country we encourage 'creativity' among the mediocre, but real bursting creativity appalls us. We put it down as undisciplined, as somehow 'too much.' Well, Before the Revolution is too much and that is what is great about it. Art doesn't come in measured quantities: it's got to be too much or it's not enough.

Economy, speed, nervousness, and desperation produce the final wasteful, semi-incoherent movies we see.